History (103 page)

Davide meanwhile had stretched out full length on the bed, all dressed, not even taking off his shoes. In his ears, he heard roars and buzzing, which didn't bother him, however, but rather seemed to cradle him like a fabulous story. But still, inside his brain, a point of steady wakefulness lasted, almost horrifying, which made him foresee a diffi night. For some time, in fact, an unpredictable chemistry had been taking place in his body, thanks to which his drugs didn't always affect him according to their proper nature; they functioned at random, in a kind of wager with his nerves : so even sleeping pills, at times, stimulated him further, instead of calming him. And this ambiguous wager frightened him this evening, like a whim of fate. For the moment, he had even forgotten the presence of the child and the dog; but a whiff of wild and caressing freshness, almost joking, from that point of the little room reminded him the two were still there.

"What are you doing here? It's late!" he exclaimed towards them, raising his head slightly, without turning his eyes. "We're going, we're going," Useppe mumbled, "it's not night yet."

"In the lands of the white nights," Davide began saying, in a musical and disoriented voice, "in some seasons it's always day. And elsewhere it's always night. As you prefer. Too many forms, too many colors. And so many meridians and parallels! On one parallel the houses are made of snow, and towers and palaces of ice, huge, walking on the waves, and they dissolve. On another, cement and glass, marble, cathedrals, mosques, pa godas . . . And forests and forests! Rain forests,
nebulas,
no, nebular . . . and half-submerged, with airy roots . . . I used to like geography, in school, thinking of journeys in the future. And now that the future has come, once in a while I say to myself: why not? But then, if I imagine ME walking, any street or town of the earth seems like a shithole to me, neither better nor worse than this room. Nothing, anywhere, but a lousy, dirty room, where it's always day and always night, as soon as I see myself going past

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From Uscppe's direction there came a vague murmur. His real answer (if he had known how to formulate it) would have been that to him the opposite eff happened; namely, that any place at all, even the lowest den, became
a
splendor for him if Davide was there, or a friend of his. "This room isn't lousy . . ." he mumbled, almost off

"TI1at's right, it's enchanted!" Davide laughed. "On some occasions, visions take place here . . . No, not really visions! That would be too great an honor! Only some transformations, exaggerations . . . You, for example," he twisted slightly to look at Useppe, "now I see you as if through a telescope : great big, too huge to get through the door. And now I see you tiny, tiny, tiny, as through the wrong end of a spyglass. And with lots and lots of little blue eyes, looking from every part of the room."

"And now? How do you see me now?" Useppe asked, coming forward hesitantly.

Davide
laughed: "You look little to me. Very very little
Useppe remembered the doctors' answers :

''I'm not growing much," he confessed.

"Well, we'll say goodbye now. Goodnight," Davide determined, laughing. However, he added :

"You want me to tell you a story?"

He had recalled, unexpectedly, a childhood memory of his sister, who, like all children, often didn't want to go to sleep at night. From the crack beneath the door, she could see the light still burning in the adjoining little room of her brother (who read until la te, in bed), and then she would gently turn the knob, and appear at the door, in her nightie, asking him to tell her a story or a fairy tale, before she went to sleep. Everyone in the family knew, in fact, that Davide had great imagination, indeed, he had almost decided to become a writer when he was grown up; and his sister, too little to be able to read, exploited his imaginings. Normally, her brother became angry at these evening intrusions; but at his sister's tenac ity, to get rid of her, he would fi launch into some sort of beginning, as a tease : "Once upon a time there was a cabbage . . ." "Once upon a time there was a broken pot . . ." "Once upon a time there was a drum . . .", however, from this point, immediately and irresistibly, he was led to improvise the rest. So in conclusion, almost against his will and with a kind of resignation, he fi contented his sister with a story born by chance, but complete in itself, and satisfying to her. One evening, for example, determined to refuse, to end the matter quickly, he had shouted at the suppliant, almost as an insult: "Once upon a time there was a chicken's shit!!" But he was immediately inspired to add that this hen laid golden eggs. And it naturally followed that the eggs were unbreakable, since they were gold : until a cock, full of courage, split them with a peck.

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Then some golden chicks came out, who proved to be so many young princes in disguise, all sons of the cock and the hen and endowed with the magic formula to destroy the evil spell. In fact, hen and cock were really the king and queen of India, victims of an enchantment of their enemy, the king of somewhere or other . . . Nothing exceptional, as you can see, in little Davide's stories; however, stories they were, with a beginning, a plot, and an end, according to the ordinary rule.

In that same way, that evening, promising Useppe a story, Davide had no idea in his head, only a hollow confusion. To begin, he uttered at random the fi words that came to his lips :
"Once upon a time there was an SS
. . ." and from this beginning, almost automatically, a little story sprang forth. Not, surely, a great creation, even in this case; but still a proper story, indeed a kind of fairy tale or parable, with an inner logic of its own and a conclusive meaning.

" . . . there was an SS, who, because of his horrible crimes, one day at dawn, was being led to the gallows. He was only about fi paces from the place of execution, which was being held in the courtyard of his prison. And as he walked forward, his eye happened to light on the crumbling wall of the yard, where one of those fl sown by the wind had grown, those fl ers that bloom wherever they fall and apparently live on air and rub ble. It was a miserable little flower, of four purplish petals and a couple of pale leaves; but in that dawning fi light, the SS saw in it, to his amaze ment, all the beauty and happiness of the universe. And he thought:
If I could go back, and could stop time, I would be willing to spend my whole life adoring that little fl
Then, as if he had become two persons, he heard inside himself his own voice, but joyful and clear, though distant, coming from some unknown place, shouting at him:
Verily I say unto you: for this last thought you have had on the point of death, you shall be saved from hell!
Telling you all this has taken me a certain amount of time; but there, it lasted only half a second. Between the SS, walking in the midst of the guards, and the fl blooming on the wall, there was still, more or less, the same distance as before : barely a step. 'No!' the SS shouted, inside himself, turning back furiously, 'you can't fool me, not again, with those old tricks !' And since his hands were bound, he tore away that little fl with his teeth. Then he dropped it on the ground and trampled it under his feet. And he spat on it. There, that's the end of the story."

"But there isn't really any hell !" Useppe commented firmly, at the story's end.
Isn't any,
in his language, half Roman dialect, meant
doesn't exist.
As if amused, Davide turned his pupils towards that minuscule fi ure, emanating, at that moment, a comical audacity.

"Hell doesn't exist?" he asked, in reply.

Useppe repeated his personal opinion, declared, not orally this time,

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but with a Sicilian-style
no,
thrusting his chin up and making his lips protrude : a movement inherited from his brother Ninnuzzu, who in turn had inherited it from his own father, Alfi of Messina.

"And
why
do you think it doesn't exist?"

"Because . . ." Useppe said, not knowing what to answer. From Bella he received a little bark of encouragement. And fi his answer was:

"Because people fl away . . ."

This explanation, to tell the truth, came out somewhat dubiously, barely a whisper. But to make up for it, the pronunciation came out very well, correct. "And horses, too," he hastened to add, "fl away . . . and dogs . . . and cats . . . and grasshoppers . . . everybody, I mean!"

"Do you know wha t an SS is?"

Useppe had known this for a long time: at least since the days of The Thousand. Indeed, in his prompt reply, he used the terms perhaps previ ously learned from Carulina herself, or perhaps from some other member of that numerous tribe :

"Germanian police!"

"Bravo!" Davide said to him, laughing. "And now, goodnight. Go on, run along; I want to sleep . . ." In fact, his eyes were closing on their own, and his voice already sounded thick, and low.

"Goodnight . . ." Useppe answered, docile. But still an uncertainty made him linger:

"When will I see you?" he asked. "Soon . . .
"

"When?!"

"Soon, soon .
"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, yes, tomorrow."

"Tomorrow you want us to come here, to your house, like that other time? After lunch, like that other time?!"

"Yes . . .
"

"That's it, then, eh? We have a date!" ". . . yy . . .
"

"I'll bring the wine!" Useppe announced, turning to leave. But at this point, having let go of Bella's leash for a moment, he ran back. And, as if in a fraternal ritual now permitted, indeed consecrated, he gave Davide a little goodbye kiss, which this time landed on one ear. In his drowsy haze, Davide was left wondering if tha t kiss were real, or the fragment of a dream. Nor did he hear the little click of the door, closed with great respect after the two visitors.